Monday, January 01, 2007 'Prioritize road concreting during phase 2 of Halsema rehabilitation'
ALARMED by a report that the World Bank would longer release the grant for the rehabilitation of the Halsema Highway , Mt. Province Gov. Maximo Dalog iterated that the priority for the second phase of the project should be on road concreting.
Dalog made the call anew, after admitting that top officials of the Department of Public Work and Highways confirmed that WB is not releasing the loan grant for the second and third phase of the Halsema Highway rehab.
"I am alarmed by this report that is why I am (pushing) that priority for the second phase should be on the concreting of the road," Dalog told reporters.
The governor said he was surprised upon learning that the program of works submitted to the DPWH was changed later sans any coordination between him and the agency.
In the initial program of work submitted to the DPWH, road concreting was among the priorities cited, but Dalog said this was changed to road widening, riprapping, and installation of guardrails. The DPWH already bid out these programs of work last December 19.
"I understand that we have different priorities (with the DPWH) but I think the priority should still be given to road pavement," he added.
The second phase of the Halsema rehabilitation starts from the Mt. Data section to Bontoc while the third stage starts from Bontoc to Banaue (Ifugao).
An initial P100-million was already released for the project. Reports also confirmed that an additional P170 million would be released. These amounts are the national government's counterparts for the road rehab.
Dalog said DPWH Regional Director Mariano Alquiza informed him of the WB loan pull-out in a meeting sometime this month. This was reportedly confirmed by DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane recently.(Jane Cadalig)
